The DIACEN project is composed of 5 organisations from 5 different EU countries – Romania, Portugal, Poland, the Netherlands and Italy. The partnership is a balance and mix that reflects the prison education world realities at European and international level.

All of the partners identified in their previous research that there is a lack of focus on adult education and the tendency is to push vocational training in prison. This is in a time that adult education can do the most good – during the pre-release period. Prison education and training is provided in overcrowded institutions with an average occupancy rate of 105% across the 28 nations of the EU. The prison populations are becoming increasingly diverse. In today’s context we need prisoners to prepare for release in a multicultural multi-ethnic society and to function as contributing parts. For this, prisoners, staff and the receiving community need to prepare to carry dialogue.